After nine years of fighting militants in Mali, French President Emmanuel Macron has justified that its pullout order was not a failure but that it is a result of the deterioration in its relations with the ruling military junta.
Marcon while making the announcement in Paris at a joint news conference alongside European Union and African Union officials said “We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside de-facto authorities whose strategy and hidden aims we do not share,” he told a convergence of news crew on Thursday.
The French leader insisted that although France remained committed to combating Islamist insurgencies in the region, rejected the notion that France’s operation had failed, Macron also added that “Victory against terror is not possible if it’s not supported by the state itself”.
During the joint media briefing, he announced that the neighboring Republic of Niger had agreed to host its Operation Barkhane alongside the European-backed Task Force Takuba which is placed under its command to fight extremists in the Sahel region.
He however promised that the military pullout from its bases in Gossi, Menaka, and Gao which is expected to take four to six months, during which time there would be fewer operations against militants in the Sahel would be conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner.
The French-led troop had remained in Mali since 2013 to provide military intervention to help oust the jihadists who were taking control of northern Mali.
However, the imminent pullout of the 2,400 French and EU forces from Mali is expected to witness an increase in the number of Russian-backed Wagner group -a private mercenary said to be between 3,000 and 5,000 according to US officials who wants to remain anonymous on Thursday.
The Wagner Group has however been sanctioned by the European Union, accusing it of carrying out a clandestine operation on behalf of the Kremlin.
This allegation has been denied by President Vladimir Putin saying that the group is not a representative of the Russian State but that the private military contractors have the right to work anywhere in the world as long as they do not break Russian law.
